


Decoys

by littlerhymes



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Origin Story, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, M/M, Podfic Available, Skinny Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1855663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The serum makes Steve stronger, but not bigger. Instead of a superhero, he becomes a spy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Decoys

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [proteinscollide](http://archiveofourown.org/users/proteinscollide) for beta-reading, reviewing canon, and for so patiently listening to me talk about this story for over a month straight; and thank you to [Sin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sin) for helping me brainstorm plot points and her Avengers expertise.
> 
> Some dialogue is taken directly from the movies.

**1943**

The first thing Steve feels when he stumbles out of the chamber on shaky legs, every bone and muscle aching, is relief - relief that it's over and that he's alive.

The second thing he feels is a wave of disappointment, from himself and from every other person in the room. He looks down at his arms, his body, and then up again with an air of resignation. "It didn't work, did it?" he says glumly. 

Howard shakes his head and claps him on the shoulder. "Better luck next time," he says in a kind enough way, as though he doesn't realise that there's not going to _be_ a next time - not for Steve, anyway. 

"Well. He's still skinny," Colonel Phillips mutters to no one in particular. Up in the observation room, Senator Brandt appears to be throwing his hands up in disgust.

At least Peggy looks relieved.

But Erskine just straightens his glasses and _hmm_ s thoughtfully. "That is yet to be determined," he says. He helps Steve out of the straps and down from the platform. "Come, my friend. Science is not conducted by the eyes alone."

*

"But the results are exceedingly clear, Colonel," Erskine protests. He jabs again at the papers and sheets and diagrams all over Phillips' desk. 

Steve stands in the corner, wishing he could be anywhere but here, as Erskine and Agent Carter fight it out with Phillips one more time. 

"Our tests show Private Rogers has significantly improved against every baseline measurement - speed, strength, endurance, recall. He is outperforming men twice his size, and he's making it look easy. The serum was in every way a success, except-"

"Except the most obvious one," Phillips says. He sighs, rubbing his face in his hands. "Put those away, Doctor, please. I've seen the results, same as you."

"Then surely there's no argument," Carter says, not for the first time. "If the serum works, then-"

"Then nothing," Phillips says sharply. He puts his hands down flat on the desk, crumpling some of the Doctor's papers, and stares them down in turn. "Look. I've never believed Project Rebirth would amount to a damn thing and if I had my way, Doctor, you'd be back on weapons development instead of wasting your time on this. But Senator Brandt's the one who's been pushing this all along and unless he gets results now, he's this close to having your funding pulled altogether. I'm not denying your achievements, Doctor, but it's not _enough_."

"But we've given him what he asked for!" Erskine protests.

"He asked for a squad of super-soldiers, men they could put on a poster punching Hitler in the jaw," Phillips says. "You gave them..." He trails off and their eyes drift over in Steve's direction; he can feel the back of his neck burning. " _Half_ a super-soldier."

Erskine opens his mouth to protest, then changes his mind, slumping back into his seat. 

"What about Steve?" Carter says quietly. Her eyes cut to Steve, cut away again. "What about my proposal?"

This, at least, is something new. Steve listens carefully but Phillips just shakes his head. 

"It's under consideration, that's all I can give you. In the meantime, you two can get started on the next batch of recruits and Rogers can await his orders. For now, Project Rebirth is going back to the drawing board."

Steve walks back to the lab with Doctor Erskine and Carter, Erskine muttering under his breath the whole way. They finally get to share that bottle that Erskine's been saving up, though it feels like a wake instead of a celebration. Steve tips the liquor down his throat and doesn't protest when Erskine pours him another glass. His new metabolism processes the alcohol before he can get properly drunk anyway. 

Carter holds her drink with practised aplomb, but the Doctor is soon drowsy and slurring his words. The two of them end up walking him back to his quarters, swaying and stumbling between them.

"I'm sorry, my friend," he says, over and over. "You're a good man, Steve, always remember that."

"I will, Doctor," Steve says soothingly, as they ease him on to his bed. The words seem to calm him down. Erskine clumsily pulls off his shoes and then flops backwards; after a moment he starts to snore. They pull the door shut behind them quietly. 

Then it's just him and Carter, standing in the dim-lit corridor. It's the first time they've been alone together since the experiment. 

"He's right, you know," Carter says. "You're a good man. The Doctor made the right decision when he chose you."

Steve shrugs, flushing a little. "I haven't done anything yet," he says. "I just wanted to be given a chance to do my part. That's all."

For a moment Carter looks like she's going to say something more, but instead she steps closer and leans down to press a kiss to his cheek. "Goodnight, Steve," she says softly. 

He's too surprised to do anything except watch her walk away, one hand pressed to his face.

*

It's still dark when Carter shakes him awake, very early the next morning. 

"Get dressed, Rogers, and pack your things," she says. "You have three minutes." As he gets up he notices her gun is drawn and ready by her side.

Pulling on his clothes and shoes, he becomes aware of the noise and commotion coming from outside, the rising sound of sirens. "What's happening?" he says, not pausing from cramming clothes into his duffel. "Agent Carter, what's wrong?" 

"Doctor Erskine is dead," she says tersely, and the knowledge hits him like a slap. "If we don't hurry, you could be next. So - _hurry_."

They leave the dorm and make their way through the camp, sticking to the shadows. On the far side of the compound, the building housing the scientists' quarters and the labs is going up in flames. The soldiers have the fire hoses out, but they look to be fighting a losing battle.

They make their way to one of the gates leading out of Camp Lehigh, where a jeep with Colonel Phillips and a driver are waiting. By then Steve's eyes are stinging with tears; he wipes at them hastily with the back of his hand as he climbs in. 

As the jeep lurches into motion, driving with dangerous speed in the dark, Phillips turns around and shouts at them over the sound of the engine. "He was shot," he says bluntly. "They shot him and every other scientist who worked on Rebirth, then burned down the lab."

"Was Stark...?" Steve says, his stomach dropping. 

"No, thank god, he wasn't on site. They got everyone else, though." 

"This could be the work of HYDRA," Peggy says. "They’ve been struggling with their own super-soldier serum since losing Dr Erskine. What if they’d found out how far he’d progressed since?"

"The question is, how did they know?" Phillips says. "Project Rebirth was top secret and the serum was officially a failure. At best, we have a serious security breach. At worst, well, looks like we have ourselves a traitor."

"Where are we going now, sir?" Steve says, clinging to the jeep with white-knuckled hands as they careen around another corner at maximum velocity.

"You and Agent Carter are shipping out and laying low," Phillips says. "You're all that's left of the Doctor's work, so HYDRA will be after you too. I'll be staying here for a while. Got some leaks to take care of."

The jeep screeches to a halt at an airstrip in the middle of nowhere, with a plane already prepped and waiting. Steve scrambles down on to the tarmac, jogging to catch up with Agent Carter and Colonel Phillips. So he's finally shipping out - and wonders, with a nervous flutter in his stomach, if there's a chance he'll cross paths with the 107th, and Bucky.

As Agent Carter steps aside to confer with the pilot about their route and destination, Phillips turns to Rogers. 

"Good luck, son," he says. His grip still crushes Steve's hand, even with his enhanced strength. "You're going to need it."

*

The first thing Carter does on arrival in London is draw several vials of Steve's blood - he's all that's left of Doctor Erskine's work, imperfect though the results may have been.

Carter performs the task herself, her hands cool and clinical. She stays briskly professional as she swabs his arm - more of a gesture than a necessity, as the wound is already closing up with his now-enhanced healing capabilities - and tells him to put his shirt back on. 

He looks up hesitantly while re-buttoning his uniform. "So... is this it? I'm going to be some kind of lab rat for the rest of the war? Hiding out from HYDRA?"

"No. Colonel Phillips finally gave his approval - you're going into the field, Rogers, and you'll be training with me. Undercover work." 

His excitement must show too obviously because Carter shakes her head. 

"It's not going to be glamorous," she says. "But I think this is something you'll be well suited for. You're strong, fast, and smart, yet people overlook you, underestimate you. Sometimes, you can turn that into an advantage."

"We're not just talking about me now, are we?" Steve says, after a moment. 

Carter looks away, carefully packing his blood samples for transport to the labs. "Mess hall closes in half an hour," she says. "If you want any food, I'd suggest you hurry."

*

A week later, a courier delivers a top secret dossier to Carter from Colonel Phillips.

It's a profile of HYDRA assassin Heinz Kruger, alias "Fred Clemson" from the State Department - Senator Brandt's guest at the serum trial. His cover had been good enough to pass the usual SSR security checks, and the Senator's too, but if they'd looked closer they'd have found "Clemson" was an alias for Heinz Kruger, one of HYDRA's most deadly assassins. The section of the report on Heinz's reported kills stretches three pages. 

A handwritten note from Phillips is clipped to the inside cover of the folder. 

_Kruger last sighted at scene of Dr Erskine's murder. Assumed to have fled US for Europe, possibly in submersible vehicle. Staying stateside to clean up this mess, then shipping out asap.  
\- P._

Carter lets Steve read the file. Technically he doesn't have the right clearance, but he's found that she isn't beyond bending the rules when she think it's necessary. 

"So this is the guy?" Steve says. 

"This is him," Carter says, and takes the file back. "Him, and others like him. This is what we're up against." 

*

The next months pass in a blur of training, field work, and missions.

Some things come easily. For years Steve struggled to do what others took for granted - now it's all turned around, his limbs and lungs and heart responding at will, without thought, on instinct.

Now, a five mile run in rough terrain barely raises his heart rate. Ten miles and he's just getting started. He can scale a three-storey building in the dark, crack a safe, and get back out again with no one the wiser. In close quarters, his hand-to-hand leaves even Carter with little to criticise. 

Other skills are harder to master. The very first time he and Carter step out undercover together - a simple information exchange with a French contact, nothing complicated - he nearly blows their cover. 

They're seated at a cafe, passing the time until they're due to meet their contact, when the local militia come through the door, demanding to see everyone's papers. All the patrons go quiet and tense, fumbling in their pockets and purses. His stomach jangling with nerves, Steve concentrates on Carter's hands as she stirs her cup of tepid tea, on the newspaper print blurring in front of his eyes, and breathes in, breathes out. 

When their turn comes, it's almost anti-climactic. The officer merely glances at them cursorily - an unexceptional youth, a pretty woman - and seeing nothing amiss with their papers, he moves on to the next table. 

Just as he starts to relax, there's a cry from the table behind him, the clash of crockery and cutlery. He turns to see two officers yanking a middle-aged woman to her feet, brandishing her papers in her face and asking questions in rough, hard tones, speaking almost too fast for him to follow. She's frightened, desperate, eyes darting all around the little shop - no one daring to meet her gaze - her expression slowly crumpling as she shakes her head, whispering denials to every shouted question. 

Steve doesn't even realise he's standing, his fists clenched, until he feels Carter's hand closing tight around his wrist, her grip hard enough to hurt. "Julien," she says, quietly but firmly, "Julien, don't, please. Sit down." It's the sound of the unfamiliar name, the cover name they chose together a week before, that finally snaps him back to his senses.

He could take on this fight and he might even win it, but the mission would be over. It'd be over and their cover would be blown, their careers destroyed if they made it back to base alive. More than that: the intelligence they've been sent to retrieve would be lost, and along with it perhaps even more lives, more battles, the war... 

"Sit down, Julien," Carter says again, and if her tone is soft as the role she's playing, the look in her eyes clearly says _that's an order, agent_. Slowly, Steve takes his seat again. 

The men taking away the now-sobbing woman give him hard stares as they leave, but they don't come back to question him further. As soon as it's clear, Steve and Carter leave as quickly as possible.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Carter says, quietly furious, as they walk away down the busy streets. 

"I don't," Steve starts to say heatedly, before biting his tongue and swallowing the rest. _I don't like bullies._ It's still true but things aren't that simple anymore. If they ever were.

Carter, looking like she's swallowing down some words of her own, takes a deep breath. "I know it's not easy," she says at last. "It should _never_ be easy. But that's what we have to do sometimes. We have to make the hard choices."

Anything he says will be taken as agreement, or disagreement, so Steve says nothing at all, his mind heavy on the look on the woman's face as she searched the room, hoping to find someone, anyone, who'd listen.

*

Not all lessons are so harsh; there are some that taste a little sweeter. 

A different night, a different mission. It's a busy evening and the streets are full. Steve walks arm-in-arm with Carter, each of them scanning the crowd. As they stop by a store window, pretending to admire a pair of soft kid gloves, she murmurs, "We have a tail. Picked him up a block ago." 

"Yeah," he says, lips barely moving, "spotted him too." 

"Time for evasive action." 

They cross the road, weaving through cars and pedestrians to an open door where music and light and laughter spill out. Once inside they take off their hats and coats, folding the latter so the lining rather than the outer fabric shows. Then Carter takes his hand and leads him to the dance floor. 

A sharp-faced man in a grey trenchcoat pushes his way into the club a few moments after they enter. He's not subtle about sweeping the room, but his eyes skate right over them. With Carter's arms around his neck and Steve's hands on her waist, her head resting on his shoulder, they look much like any other young couple in the crowded room, snatching a moment away from the war.

By the time the song is over, their tail has disappeared down the corridor behind the bar, no doubt thinking they've made their escape out the back door. 

"Should we...?" Steve says, a little reluctantly, but mindful of their pending rendezvous. 

"We'll wait one more song," Peggy says, after a moment. Her arms tighten around his neck, and there's just a hint of a smile on her face. "Just to be safe."

* 

But just a few days after that - 

Peggy drops a file on his desk. "What's this?" he says, flipping it open and scanning over the grainy surveillance photographs, the staccato lines of dates, times, places. "This guy's our next contact?"

"Your first mark," Peggy says quietly.

Steve knew war meant killing - he wasn't naive about that. But he had never thought it would mean walking up to a man in the dark and quietly putting a bullet in his head, even if the act itself had probably saved dozens of lives.

Afterwards Peggy says nothing when he empties his guts by the side of the road, just squeezes his shoulder and hands him a flask of water to clean his mouth out. As they drive back to base in silence, he wonders what the first time had been like for her, if she had taken it in her stride or if it had shaken her like it's shaking him. 

He belatedly realises, too, that she hadn't been there just as an observer. If he hadn't finished the job, she would've taken the mark herself.

Peggy's there to observe on the next job and the next one too, until he's deemed competent. Once the assignments start coming, they don't stop. Steve's never going to be great at straight-up undercover work like Peggy is - but he's strong and smart and forgettable enough to be useful on almost any mission, whether he's solo or lead or back-up.

The missions continue, his stomach settles, his hands stop trembling. His heart never really does. 

*

Bucky's infrequent letters to Steve were always brief; they only become more so as the war goes on. He was never much of a writer, preferring to talk his way in and out of trouble. 

Dry though the letters may be, they're one of Steve's few comforts and he writes back as often as his assignments allow. His letters far outstrip Bucky's for length though the truth is he doesn't say much more than Bucky does - he's vague by necessity, and the censors take care of any details he doesn't eliminate himself. So he tells Bucky he's stationed in London, hinting that he's in some desk job far from the front lines, and leaves the rest deliberately blank. 

Even if he could, he wouldn't. What he does in the shadows isn't anything to be proud about. The long stake-outs, the shots in the dark, the covert killings - these he'll keep to himself. Instead he dwells on reminders of better days and little moments that mean nothing at all. 

_There's a nurse here who reminds me of Mrs Bartnik from upstairs, she's always trying to feed me._

_Have you seen the red squirrels they have over here? They're cute but I kinda miss the little grey guys we have back home._

When he runs out of chatter, he draws instead - enclosing quick sketches of trees laden with snow, a cat curled up on a windowsill, a woman turned in profile.

 _Miss you, buddy_ , he writes sometimes; and means in every line, in every drawing and pointless story. 

He'd always known that having a best friend like Bucky was something special. They'd argued all the time, sure, but they always had each other's backs, they never doubted that they were stronger together than they were apart. If the war hadn't come they'd be there still, bickering over laundry and scraping for rent and going on hopeless double dates. They'd be content.

But the war did come, taking Bucky in one direction and Steve in another; and it was the war, too, that brought Steve and Peggy together, two strangers who might otherwise have never met. 

He mentions her in his letters from time to time, cautious little references to a fellow officer in what he thinks are the most neutral of terms. It's actually Bucky who points out the obvious.

_Sounds like you're falling for this Peggy of yours. Please tell me you've asked her out for a dance already._

Up till then Steve thought he'd never fallen in love. But now that someone's actually said it, he realises what it means when his heart starts racing when she comes into the room, when she lets her hand linger over his, when he dips her by the waist on a dancefloor and they stay two songs longer than their mission strictly demands. 

He's falling in love with Peggy Carter, and she's falling in love with him.

But now that he has a name for it, something else becomes slowly obvious too. It's one thing to call what he feels for Peggy "love" - it's another to realise that he's felt this same sweet sting before. 

Back in Brooklyn, back in their old home, every evening the door swung open and Bucky walked through, every time they'd bumped shoulders walking together in the street, every night they had long low conversations in the dark until they fell asleep...

He realises, miles away and months too late, that maybe that had been love too. 

What that might mean about himself - well. He tries not to think about it too much. In the same way he might now weigh up the cost of a single life against a greater mission, the same learned ability to make those hard decisions in the field, he decides: this is something he'll deal with later. 

_After the war_ , Steve promises himself, _everything will be clearer when I see him again after the war_ , and writes a letter describing the latest prank in the mess hall instead.

*

Steve finds out about Bucky when he comes back from a week-long solo mission that ends with three dead and one munitions factory decommissioned. 

After debriefing back at camp with Peggy, he's about to head to the showers and a much-needed change of clothes when she stops him short. "There's something you should know, Rogers," she says, the hesitance in her voice making his stomach drop. "It's about your friend Barnes, in the 107th." 

She only gets as far as telling him the facts and that there will be no rescue mission before he's tearing out of the tent, running full pelt across camp towards Colonel Phillips' quarters.

"Requesting permission to go after the 107th, sir," he blurts out immediately when he pushes into Phillips' tent unannounced, in a shocking breach of protocol. 

"Denied," Phillips replies without looking up from his papers.

"Please, sir," Steve says. "Just let me try."

Phillips, when he finally deigns to look up, gives him a flat and frankly terrifying stare. "Why the hell would I do that?"

"Sir, I can do this," Steve says rapidly, unable to slow down, as though speaking more quickly will get him to his destination faster. "I've proven myself to you time and time again. I'll take this like any other mission. If you can't spare me some men, then I can do it alone. I'll run surveillance and go in covertly, choose my moment, go in at minimal risk. And if I fail, well, then all I am is one more fallen soldier."

Phillips' eyebrows rise. "May I remind you, Rogers, that you're all we have left of Project Rebirth? And that as an operative you have a value to the United States that far exceeds what little good you might accomplish on a suicide mission?"

"I know," Steve says, desperation making his voice ragged. "But-"

"But nothing," Phillips says. "You've made yourself too damn useful to throw away on a hopeless cause." His expression, stolid and stern as it is, softens just a fraction. "Go get yourself cleaned up, son. You look like hell."

So Steve gets himself cleaned up. Then he immediately starts packing again, methodically checking his weapons and his gear, making sure he has what he needs to go deep into enemy territory without back-up, no second chances.

He's so focused that he doesn't even notice Peggy watching from the flap of his tent until she says, sharply, "Going somewhere, Rogers?" 

He scrambles to his feet. "Yes, ma'am," he says automatically, then, "I mean, no, ma'am."

Then they both look at his bag, packed and ready. 

"Agent Carter," Steve says, giving up any attempt at pretence, "Peggy. I'm going after them and I'm sorry, but nothing you say is going to stop me."

"Yes," Peggy says, sounding resigned and proud at the same time. "I know when I'm fighting a losing battle. So I'm not going to stop you. I'm going to help you." 

*

Stark and Peggy fly him over the border into Austria and as close to the HYDRA base in Krossberg as they dare; then he parachutes down to the forest below. From here, he's on his own. 

There's a steady stream of trucks and troops entering the base. It's relatively simply work to choose his moment, put a sleeper hold on an unsuspecting guard, and steal his uniform and helmet. 

Inside the compound, no one takes any notice of the skinny HYDRA guard slipping into the laundry facilities and emerging again pushing a full trolley; nor when that same guard pushes the trolley down to the prisoners' quarters. 

The Allied prisoners are glad enough to see him, if a little dubious at first. 

"So, uh, where's the rest of your team?" says a tall guy with a bushy moustache. He squints down at Steve. "I mean - no offence, kid, but there are more of you waiting just outside that door, right?"

"Nope. Were you expecting a crack team of soldiers to come blasting in here, waving the American flag?" Steve says over his shoulder, unlocking another cell door. "Because if you were, sorry. It's just me."

"Well..." he starts to say.

"Yep," Steve says, unlocking the last door. "Just me, a bunch of guns and HYDRA uniforms, and a backpack full of explosives."

The eyes of another man light up at the mention of the last. "Explosives, you say? Okay, kid, now you're talking." He rubs his hands together. "I think we can work with this."

"Wait. Is there anybody else?" Steve says, scanning the crowded room. "I'm looking for a Sergeant James Barnes?"

An English soldier shakes his head. “He's in the isolation ward in the factory. No one's ever come back from it.” 

"Okay." Steve starts to rethink his plan. "Then this is what we're gonna do..."

*

Bucky thinks it's a dream when Steve appears to rip away his bonds and pull him to his feet. 

It's a good dream, a welcome respite from the nightmare of the past few weeks, so he goes along with it even though it makes no damn sense. Even the explosions that rock the factory and send him lurching into Steve's side ("dammit," Steve says worriedly, catching Bucky easily around the waist, "they weren't meant to set them off so soon - unless HYDRA's doing this themselves?") seem like another extension of the surreal logic of dreaming. Hey, if Steve is going to appear out of nowhere, what's a few fireballs and collapsing buildings on top of that?

It is pretty weird when Schmidt rips his own face off though. Even by the standards of dreaming, that's disgusting.

It's not until they're stumbling out of the HYDRA base - then already well on its way to being reduced to smoking ruins - that it starts to really sink in. That Steve is here, right beside him, real enough to touch.

"It really is you," he says, in a wondering voice. 

Steve frowns at him. "That's the fifth time you've said that. What did they do to you, Bucky?"

Before he can reply, Steve catches sight of something over his shoulder. He shoves Bucky out of the way with surprising force, saying, "stay down!"

Sprawled on the ground, Bucky watches as Steve takes down four HYDRA troops, one after another, moving faster than it should be possible for anyone to move let alone _Steve_ , skinny asthmatic 4F Steve. And the way he puts down the last one with a bullet to the head, ice cold like he's done it many times before - that more than anything socks the breath right out of him.

"What did they do to me, huh?" Bucky says, slowly climbing to his feet, eyes wide. "More like, what the hell did they do to _you_?"

Steve's face falls, just a little. "Bucky," he says, then stops and shakes his head. "Come on. We'll talk about it later. Let's go find the others."

But somehow, on the march back to base camp in Italy, they never do find the time to talk about it. 

Military being military, the men fall easily enough into chains of command; and Bucky, Steve, and a handful of other soldiers find themselves at the top of the tree. Every day there's decisions to be made, routes to be scouted, and they're perpetually short on ammunition and supplies. Every day is hard, but the work focuses Bucky's mind, keeps him from dwelling too much on his time in the isolation ward and the factory. 

It also stops him from thinking too much about how Steve's been avoiding him.

When they're close to base camp, Steve volunteers to go on ahead and alert the camp of their arrival. "Colonel Phillips would have my head if we tried walking in there without giving him fair warning," he says.

"I'll go with you," Bucky offers, starting to stand. "Watch your back."

"No need, this area is clear. I'll be fine," Steve says briskly. He turns and leaves before any objection can be made.

As the rest of them trudge those last few miles to the camp, Bucky starts thinking, well, maybe it's not that Steve's avoiding him. Maybe Steve just doesn't need him around anymore. That some time between enlisting and now, when he suddenly got healthy and freakishly strong, Steve realised that he was getting along just fine without his old friend looking over his shoulder every second...

People have always thought Steve needed him more than he needed Steve, but Bucky knows it’s the other way round. It hurts to think that maybe Steve is finally waking up to that. 

Bucky's so lost in his head that it takes a sharp elbow to his side to make him look up - to properly _look_ \- at the camp coming up ahead of them. "Check it out, Barnes," Gabe says. "Looks like we've got ourselves a welcoming committee."

What seems like the entirety of the camp must be out there, cheering and clapping and waving as their rag-tag band of soldiers rounds the crest of the hill and enters through the gates. There's even a photographer, jesus, and Bucky blinks a little as the flash goes off in their faces.

As the back-slaps and handshakes and photos go on and on, Bucky smiles, or tries to smile, but he's looking at every face and over every shoulder, searching for the one person who should be there and isn't. 

*

After reporting to Colonel Phillips, Steve goes into custody quietly. They put him in a makeshift cell, under constant guard, his hands cuffed and tethered. He's fairly sure he could break free if he tried - but he won't try. Phillips knows that as well as he does.

It's late when Phillips and Carter come by to see him. By then the camp has quieted down, the earlier excitement giving way to the military's usual routines. The freed men have no doubt been given bedrolls and are going to sleep with full stomachs. 

Peggy stands by the door with her arms crossed and just the faintest crease of worry between her brows; while Phillips pulls up a chair, sitting down across from Steve so they can see eye to eye.

"Well, well, Rogers," Phillips says, shaking his head. "What am I going to do with you? Court martial, perhaps? Do I ship you back to the States? What do you think's gonna happen?"

"Nothing, sir," Steve says, in his most wooden tones. He's had a long time to think about this.

"Nothing?" Phillips leans back. He seems amused. "Nothing? You disobeyed direct orders, son. What makes you think you can get away with that?"

"Firstly, sir, you said it yourself - I'm the only product from Project Rebirth and I'm valuable to the war effort," Steve says, looking straight ahead. "And I have intel on HYDRA's other bases. So I'm not exactly replaceable. Sir.

"Secondly, sir, I walked into camp today without a single sentry challenging me, so I'm going to go ahead and assume no one outside this room knows I went AWOL or why I'm locked up in here right now. I'm guessing that means you came to the same conclusion I did, which is that I'm going to be more useful to you in the field than locked up in a jail cell."

"He has you there, Colonel," Peggy says drily from her position by the door.

"Okay, then, smartass," Phillips says, in the same laconic tone he's used from the start. "Let's say you're right and I let you walk out of here, no consequences. What do I do with you then? Just send you back to work like nothing ever happened?"

"No, sir," Steve says. "That would be a waste of resources. As I said, I have intel on HYDRA. I've seen how they work, I know what they can do. If you give me one good team, I'll go after them, just like I did in Austria."

Phillips stares at him. 

He stares right back.

Finally, Phillips shrugs and reaches into his pocket. He tosses Steve the keys to his cuffs and stands, saying, "Get out of here and get some rest, Rogers. You've got a lot of work ahead of you."

Phillips strides out without waiting for a response, dismissing the sentries as he goes, but Peggy waits. He leaves the cuffs neatly coiled on the table next to the keys, and they walk out together. 

"You're late, Rogers," she says severely.

"Yes, ma'am," he says, straight-faced. "Sorry to worry you, ma'am."

"Worry?" she says, eyebrows arched. "Far from it. I trained you myself, didn't I? I'm just disappointed that the job took you so long." 

"I'll aim to do better next time, ma'am."

"You do that, Rogers." She stops, and he realises they've walked not to his usual quarters but to a section of the camp filled with newly-erected tents. "Your friend Barnes was asking after you," she says. "You should go see him."

"Yeah?" he says, casually, his heart thumping. "Well, it's late and it's been a long time since any of those boys had a good night's sleep. Maybe I'll save it for tomorrow."

"He's _worried_ about you," Peggy says. "Go see him, Steve. Isn't he why you did this in the first place?" She squeezes his arm gently, then gives him a little shove. He watches her walk away, wanting to be a coward and follow suit. 

From behind him, there's a low whistle. "She's some dame." Steve whips around to find Bucky watching him, smoking as he slouches against the side of a shed. 

"Agent Carter's one of the finest officers I've ever had the honour of serving with," he says, rather stiffly.

"Christ." Bucky drops the cigarette in the dirt and grounds it out under his boot. "I was just making conversation, okay? Look, forget about it. Where've you been, Steve? I've been looking for you all day."

Steve looks away. "I was busy," he says. 

"Bullshit you were." Bucky steps closer, his hand on Steve's jaw, forcing him to look at him. "You've been avoiding me for days, Steve. What happened? Too good for your old pal now?" The words are light but they come out sounding raw.

"No," Steve says, startled. He hadn't thought about it that way. He pulls Bucky's hand away by the wrist, and then just - doesn't let go. "It's not like that."

"Then what is it?" Bucky says. "What did they do to you, Steve?"

Steve takes a deep breath, plunges through it. Part of it, at least, the easy part; the rest can wait for after the war. Lie by omission, as Peggy always said. 

"It's not just what they did to me, Bucky - it's what I've done. Since the last time you saw me, I've had to do a lot of things I'm not proud about." He remembers the look on Bucky's face when he'd killed those soldiers, the shock in his eyes. "At first I _couldn't_ tell you. Then I just didn't want you to know."

Bucky just shakes his head. "Steve, you moron. You honestly think I care about that? You think I'm in any position to judge? Hell. I'll bet I'm just as screwed up as you are."

"Yeah, but you don't know," Steve says. Bucky doesn't realise the half of it; if Steve has his way, he never will. "You don't _know_ , Bucky."

"Well, just try me," Bucky says, with that cocky, challenging look in his eye that Steve has missed so badly. He twists his wrist in Steve's grip, turns it so their hands are clasping. "Just try me, buddy. Don't give up on me because I ain't giving up on you. Okay?"

Slowly, Steve nods. And the truth is he's glad. Selfishly, happily glad that Bucky won't let him walk away. 

"Okay then." Bucky relaxes, his body losing a tension that Steve hadn't even realised was there until it was gone. "Now c'mon." Bucky slings his arm around Steve's shoulders. "You can tell me all about it over a drink."

"Yeah, well," Steve says, letting himself be pulled away. "About that..."

*

While they're on the boat back to headquarters in London, something unexpected happens - the photos from their triumphant return to base camp hit the papers, and by the time they disembark, Bucky and the others are minor celebrities.

Falsworth takes the headlines in London but it's Bucky in particular who gets the front-page treatment from the American papers. He takes the ribbing from the other soldiers with grudging good humour, looking heavenwards as though asking for strength when someone makes yet another crack about 'the blue-eyed boy from Brooklyn'. 

Steve - who appears in none of the photographs at all, while his name is likewise carefully redacted from any report - is as pitiless as the rest. When Bucky complains about the long queues at a crowded bar, Steve says, "Why didn't you just bat your lashes, war hero? The people would've parted like the Red Sea."

Everyone around the table laughs and hollers. "Okay, okay, you can all get your own drinks next time!" Bucky yells over the top of them, taking his seat again with a thump. 

The truth is he's kind of relieved every time Steve gives him hell, every time he's reassured that they're back to their old ways. He still can't believe Steve was dumb enough to think that the war would change how Bucky felt about him. If anything, it's Bucky who should be worried. He always knew Steve was destined for better things, that he was too good to be hanging around with a someone like him. 

So the photos and the headlines aren't exactly the biggest thing on Bucky's mind. It's not until Phillips and Carter call him and Steve in to discuss the upcoming strikes on HYDRA that Bucky realises what a problem they've become.

"What?" Bucky says on hearing the plan. "No. _No_ , absolutely not."

"Bucky," Steve says quietly, looking completely unsurprised. He's in on this too, Bucky realises. "Just hear them out."

"Are you serious?" Bucky says, directly to Steve. "This is your mission, this should be _your_ team. You earned it. You deserve it."

Steve looks at him steadily. "You know it's not about that."

"As I was saying?" Colonel Phillips clears his throat, looking decidedly unimpressed. "Agent Rogers will continue to be closely involved in all practical aspects of the running of this operation. But the fact is he's an undercover agent, whereas what the outfit _needs_ is a public face. Not to beat around the bush, but Senator Brandt has made it plenty clear that his continued support of the SSR is dependent on certain outcomes." 

"You mean he wants to crank up the good news stories and sell more war bonds," Bucky says with a sneer. "Fine. Then why not one of the other guys? Why not take Steve off the undercover gig? Why me?"

"Because it's your ugly mug that's selling the papers, that's why," Phillips says flatly. "Wars need heroes, son, and you fit the bill."

"Bucky," Steve says quietly. "Please."

Bucky stands up, chair scraping loudly against the wood floor. "I ain't no hero," he says, clenching his fists. "You want a hero? You already got one right here." 

He walks out and heads for the street. 

He's leaning against the wall, fumbling with a cigarette and a box of matches, when Carter clears her throat and steps up beside him. "Need a hand?" she says, flicking her lighter.

"Thanks," he mutters, bending down to accept her offer.

He's only taken a couple of drags when she speaks up again. "You care about Steve a great deal, don't you, Barnes?" 

"Geez." He nearly chokes on his cigarette. "You don't exactly beat about the bush, do you, Agent Carter?" 

"I don't see the point of wasting time," she says, not turning a hair. "But I'm right, aren't I? I can tell, you see - I care about him too."

And they're suddenly skating so close to something that he's never said out loud that he laughs harshly. He looks at her sideways. Her profile in the afternoon light makes something clear, another stone in his stomach. "You're her, aren't you? Peggy. The girl in all his letters." 

"Don't avoid the question, sergeant." She's completely unmoved. No wonder, he thinks with a mixture of admiration and envy, that Steve is sweet on her. 

"Yeah, yeah, so what," Bucky says. "I care about him. You know I do. And I _care_ about him being shoved into the background just because you say so. I care about you trying to make him into something he's not, for making him believe he's anything less than what he is."

"But do you care enough to protect him, Barnes?" she says sharply. "Enough to put yourself in harm's way to keep him safe?" 

"Of course I do, more than anything," he says, firing it back just as hard. "You think I wouldn't lay down my life for him if I had to? I'd take a bullet for Steve, a _bullet_. Just name the day."

"If you really mean that, Barnes," she says, looking him square in the eye, "then you'll do what we're asking you to do. Not for their reasons, but for _our_ reasons. Don't you see? I'm not asking you to steal Steve's glory. I'm asking you to be his decoy."

*

_His decoy._

Bucky keeps that thought simmering in the back of his mind. It helps him endure the photo sessions and the newsreel shoots, the long hours of alternately smiling cheerfully and furrowing his brow while pointing at a map. 

Steve is there too, but unlike the rest of the team he's never on the receiving end of the cameras. He stands back and to the side, arms folded, smiling a little as he watches Bucky being paraded around like a damn puppet. 

"Nice work, Barnes," he says, slow clapping as the photographer finally lets them go for the day. "Can't believe you get paid for this."

"Hey now," Bucky protests, arms wide. "I just make it _look_ this easy."

Within a few days the propaganda machine has begun its work, images of Bucky and the boys sent flying all over the world. Soon some of the papers are giving him nicknames, and somehow 'Captain America' is the one that sticks. Next thing he knows they're fussing about giving him a special uniform or a special weapon, maybe writing him a jingle? Gritting his teeth, he refuses them all.

The one thing he does accept is one of Howard Stark's prototypes: a shield made of vibranium. It's an impressive piece of work - though he's less impressed when they insist on painting it red, white, and blue. Privately he thinks it's a gaudy, stupid thing to carry into a battlefield, looking like nothing so much as a target. 

But what the hell - let them aim those bullets at me, he thinks as Stark fiddles with the fit of the shield to his arm. Let them shoot right at this bullseye, so long as it keeps them from shooting at Steve.

Just before they ship out, the Commandos go out for one last night on the town. It's meant to be a chance for them to forget about all their troubles, and for most of them that's not hard to achieve - a few drinks and a few laughs, that's all it seems to take. But Bucky wanders away; Steve finds him sitting at the bar when the rest are just starting to get rowdy.

"I know why we're doing this," he says to Steve, tracing stars and circles in the beer stains on the bar. "But it still doesn't feel right. No matter how many times I tell myself all the reasons why we've got to do it like this, I still think it should be you."

"You don't think 'Captain America' is the right person to be leading us into battle?" Steve says, trying to make a joke of it.

"Nope," Bucky says, taking a drink, pasting on a smile. "Not so long as there's this guy called Steve Rogers hanging around." 

Moments later Agent Carter walks in, a bombshell in red turning every head in the room. 

"Agent Rogers, Captain Barnes," she says, without a glance in Bucky's direction. "I see your top squad is prepping for duty."

Usually that would be Bucky's cue, his moment to turn on the charm with some line about music or dancing. But who's he to get in the way when Steve has finally found the right girl? Bucky leans back against the bar and watches instead.

"Ma'am," Steve says. "Well, it's their last chance to have some fun before we ship out. You can't blame them for a few high spirits."

"No?" Carter says, eyebrows arched. "Perhaps some of us are waiting till after the war to have some fun. I might even go dancing."

At the word 'dancing' they start to smile at one another, remembering some shared moment, with eyes for no one else in the room. And that's what love must look like, he thinks with a bitter taste in his mouth, looking between them. 

It's obvious to everyone - from across the room he hears a none-too-subtle whisper, wondering what can a dame like her possibly see in a guy like him? Bucky almost wishes he could turn around and say, buddy, don't you know? Peggy Carter sees _everything_. She sees who Steve really is.

She stays long enough to make Steve blush a couple of times before saying goodnight. As she turns to go, she pauses just a moment to murmur for Bucky's ears alone - "Remember our agreement."

He raises his glass and toasts her exit. She already knows he will, because Peggy Carter sees everything. Even the things you don't want her to know. 

*

**1944**

As the Howling Commandos wage their campaign against HYDRA, images and stories keep coming out of Europe to hit the papers and the newsreels. Senator Brandt, Steve hears, is very happy with the results, especially anything featuring the Brooklyn-boy-made-good who's at the front of every charge. 

Within the Commandos, it's a different story. Bucky's their leader and they respect that, but they also respect that Steve's saved their skin more times than they can count, even if his name only appears on the records as Agent Rogers, SSR Liaison.

Morita tries summing it up around a campfire after one of their early raids. "Well, you're not big and you're not scary," he says, "and I don't think you could intimidate a Nazi if you tried. And you're not exactly a charmer, like Falsworth here." Falsworth raises his hand in acknowledgement without looking up from his novel.

"Thanks," Steve says, dubiously.

"But I'm also pretty damn sure we wouldn't have made it out alive today if you hadn't come up with that move with the grenades." Morita rubs at his forehead a little. "Though I swear, my eyebrows are never going to be the same again."

"Or my moustache," Dum Dum says, worriedly stroking his luxuriant facial hair.

Dernier snorts and says something disparaging in French; Gabe laughs uproariously, slapping his thigh. "Exactly!"

Bucky just smiles at him over the campfire, warm and proud, the look enough to make Steve's heart beat a little faster. But then he throws an acorn at Steve's head and laughs. "You keep on with the compliments, Morita, and his head is gonna swell."

And that's about as serious as things get with the Commandos. Steve honestly prefers it that way. There's no other squad remotely like them, and with Bucky leading the way and Steve backing him up, they defeat HYDRA at almost every turn. 

Then, on a routine raid on a HYDRA base in Austria, they find Kruger.

* 

The Commandos start things rolling with a few well-placed rounds of dynamite. 

When the first explosive detonates, destroying part of the HYDRA bunker, that's the signal for Bucky, Dum Dum and Morita to move in while Falsworth picks off enemies from his sniper's position at the treeline. With all the commotion and HYDRA's attention focused at the front, Steve slips in at the back, flanked by Dernier and Jones. That's usually how it goes - the footsoldiers get so focused on the man with the shiny shield near the big explosion that they're taken by surprise by the secondary force blocking their exit routes. 

This time, however, Steve knows it will be different when he gets deep inside the base and realises the man shooting at him is Heinz Kruger.

He's looked over Kruger's file so many times now that he has it memorised. Through all the missions, he's kept his eyes and ears open for word on Doctor Erskine's killer, but Kruger's always been in the wrong place at the wrong time, always too far out of reach. 

They make each other in the same moment - Kruger's eyes widen first in recognition and then an ugly kind of eagerness. With Gabe and Dernier having split off to secure the western side of the building, it's just Steve and Kruger, both shooting and ducking for cover as the sounds of battle echo from elsewhere in the compound. 

Back in the States, Kruger in the guise of Fred Clemson had seemed nothing more than a bookish, bloodless bureaucrat. He must've been selected, just like Steve, for his ordinariness, his forgettability. Here, however, with blood smearing his face and a gun in his hand, teeth bared, the facade is ripped away and it's hard to see Kruger as anything but an assassin.

"Mr Rogers," he calls from his position behind a concrete pillar, his accent a flawless, neutral American. "I've been looking for you. Where have you been hiding all this time?"

"Could say the same about you," Steve says, stalling, glancing around the corner quickly to try to work out the angles, figure out how best to attack. "We have unfinished business."

"You must know, Rogers, that you were Doctor Erskine's most fascinating failure. I wonder what he'd think of you now, if he knew how-"

Steve doesn't wait to hear any more. He shoots out the light above Kruger's position and then dives across the floor, sliding the last few feet to where Kruger must be. He guesses right, because there's the whistle of bullets in the air above his head just as his boots sweep Kruger's legs out from under him. 

Kruger falls down beside Steve with a heavy _oof_ ; Steve chops at his arm and his gun falls away somewhere in the dark. But Kruger keeps his head, and with a few quick, painful holds he forces Steve to drop his weapon too - at least he manages to kick it away, out of both their reaches. 

Then they're struggling with one another blindly in the dark, skill and technique boiled down to their most brutal aspects as they try to simply beat each other into the ground. Winded and aching, bloody at the mouth, still somehow Steve manages to flip Kruger on his stomach and wrestle himself on top, grabbing at Kruger's wrists and wrenching them behind his back. Kruger surges up, trying smash the back of his head into Steve's face, but he's expecting that and lunges away just in time. He pushes his knee into the small of Kruger's back to make sure he stays down, and cuffs Kruger's wrists, cinching them tight.

"I'm going to take you in," he says, panting heavily, Kruger's breath sounding just as weary and hoarse. "I'm taking you in and you're going to stand trial for Doctor Erskine's murder. For _all_ their murders."

But Kruger just laughs. "Hail HYDRA," he says, with something like pride in his voice. "Hail HYDRA!" He laughs again before he dissolves into coughs and then a racking, awful choking sound. As Kruger's body shakes beneath him, Steve realises the man is dying. _Cyanide pill._

"No," Steve says, flipping Kruger on to his back. "No!" He fumbles at Kruger's mouth and forces his jaw open, feeling foamy saliva and blood against his fingers. It's much too late. Kruger chokes and shudders, then goes limp and utterly still.

Officially, the mission is a success. 

Unofficially, Steve stays silent on the journey back to their camp, his feet striding ahead absently as he keeps going over and over those last moments, Kruger escaping justice to the very end. 

*

**1945**

Bucky never really talks about his time in HYDRA's isolation ward. His official debrief was cursory, his claims to "not remember much" accepted at face value. 

To Steve, he unbends a little more - he tells him there were tests, experiments, that it was Doctor Zola behind it all. Bucky wakes up sometimes in the night, gasping like he's run a marathon; and although they don't talk about it, the nightmares tell Steve as much as Bucky's brief, stilted stories.

So when the intel comes in about Zola and the train, Steve already knows it's not going to be an ordinary mission, no matter how many jokes they crack about it. 

"Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone on Coney Island?"

"Yeah, and I threw up."

"This isn't pay back, is it?"

Zola is prepared for them - that much becomes clear when the door between the cars seals shut, trapping them on either side. 

Steve dispatches the HYDRA troops on his side easily enough; they're simply not prepared for how fast he can be. But then he's stuck on the wrong side of the door, helplessly watching as Bucky goes up against the overpowered thug firing away at him with both barrels. 

At first it seems Bucky's holding his own, the shield withstanding every blast. It's also thanks to the shield that one shot gets deflected, blowing open the side of the train to the rushing wind and the yawning cliff edge below. As Bucky moves forward through the car, firing around the edge of his shield, the HYDRA soldier powers up and blasts back. 

Steve watches it happen in slow motion - the counter-fire, the recoil, Bucky's fall.

Steve's distantly aware of his own harsh breaths, the impact of his fists against steel and glass. The pain brings him back to himself enough for him to focus, to think. He steps back, shoots open the panel above the door, shorts the circuitry; then heaves the door open with a screech of metal. 

When the door finally yields he goes through firing, ducking to avoid a blast to the chest and picking up Bucky's shield from the ground where it fell. When he fires a shot and sees it bounce from the soldier's armour, he decides to take desperate measures. Steve hefts the shield and sends it spinning from his hand like a discus - and the soldier finally topples with a _thunk_. 

Steve doesn't spare him a second glance before running to the hole in the side of the train, clinging to the metal siding as he edges out into the void. Bucky, miraculously, is still hanging on by the tips of his fingers.

"Bucky! Hang on. Grab my hand."

They reach out. They fall short. 

Bucky screams as he falls. 

*

Steve lets Gabe and the others handle Zola, telling them to go on ahead and that he'll meet them back at base camp. He has another job to finish.

He'd head out into the snow alone if he had to - but he doesn't have to. Bucky was one of them, the leader of their band of brothers. Morita and Falsworth are the first two to volunteer, and if they'd been any slower then any of the others would have stood up in their place. So the three of them head down into the ravine, following the curve of the mountain and the railway tracks. They fan out, combing the rocks and trees and snow for any sign or trace. 

Night starts to fall. They don't find the body.

The next morning, over hard bread and tea made from snowmelt, Falsworth says, somewhat reluctantly, "We've done as much as we can, Agent Rogers. We should head back and meet up with the others."

"We will. Soon," Steve says heavily, looking down into his tin mug. "Just - let's give it a few more hours." 

They should be already well on their way to reporting back with the outcome of the mission, but Falsworth and Morita just nod and finish up their meagre meals. Steve gets his 'few more hours', but it's pointless, anyway. Their search turns up nothing. 

The only thing he has left is the shield. Steve carries it on his back all the way back to base; a cold, heavy weight that refuses to warm in the thin winter light.

He expects they'll arrive to find the others packed and ready to transport Zola into the custody of the SSR. They're ready, but there's an uneasy air about them that isn't just due to their recent loss. 

Dum Dum takes him aside as soon as he arrives. "Something's up at HQ," he says, folding his arms. "We checked in straight away, but instead of giving us the all-clear, they're telling us to stall." 

"What?" It doesn't make sense. Zola is a prize - Phillips should be asking them to come in straight away. "Let me see the message."

Steve decodes and recodes the message himself. There's no error. They're being told to go to a rendezvous point and wait for further instructions. Then it slowly dawns on him. "Bucky," he says, crushing the paper in his hand. "This is because of Bucky. They don't want anyone to know."

Colonel Phillips, Peggy and a handful of soldiers are waiting at the rendezvous to take over custody of Zola. While the Commandos are getting their rest, Steve makes his report to Phillips and Peggy in private. 

It's a difficult debriefing. Peggy turns away when he describes Bucky's death, and her eyes are dark and shining when she looks up again. Even Phillips lacks his usual vinegar. "Barnes was a fine soldier," he says heavily, which was as much of a compliment as Steve had ever heard him give to anyone.

"Yes, sir," Steve says woodenly. "One of the best, sir." The routine of it, the formulaicism, helps him keep his composure. It's with the same distant carefulness that he asks his next question. "They don't want us telling anyone about this, do they, sir?"

Phillips drums his fingers on the table. "No," he says finally. "You're not surprised, are you?"

"No, sir," Steve says. "When you didn't want us to come in, sir, it was obvious."

"I've been advised that 'Captain America'," Phillips says, his tone enough to put the name in heavily inverted commas, "is of vital importance to the national morale. So, yes. I'm sorry, Rogers, but we've been told to keep this quiet for now. Officially, the Commandos are in deep cover and on active duty."

"Until when?" Steve says. He wills his voice to stay steady. "How long are we supposed to pretend?"

"I don't know, Rogers," Phillips says. "I just don't know."

The next day, Phillips calls a meeting: Zola has cracked and they know what Schmidt is planning. The attack is to go ahead within a week; the Commandos are first to volunteer.

*

Peggy finds him later, sitting alone in the bombed-out lobby of what was once a hotel. "It wasn't your fault," she says.

"You heard the report. You know that's not true."

The shield lays on the table beside them, next to the bottle of whiskey that he emptied but doesn't even feel. "He died because of this," Steve says, laying a hand on the cold, smooth surface of the shield. "That was part of the deal, you know? That he'd go in first. Lead the attack. Captain America would draw the fire and the rest of us would clean up afterwards. Never failed us. Until it did."

"Steve," Peggy says. "It wasn't like that."

"But it was," Steve insists. "He never wanted to be Captain America. He never wanted it. If he hadn't done it, if he hadn't taken the shield, then..." 

"He only took it because he wanted to protect you," Peggy says, after a moment. "You do know that, don't you? He took it because he cared for you. Because he thought you were worth it."

Steve looks down at the shield, at the colours that in the dark seem almost black. "Maybe he was wrong."

"Oh, Steve," Peggy says. She holds on to his hand with both of her own. "No. Never."

Maybe, one day, he'll believe it. 

*

Steve leads the attack on Schmidt's mountain fortress, wielding Bucky's shield. 

Captain America lives - for at least one more mission, anyway.

There's a part of Steve that thinks it's wrong to perpetuate the same lie that denies Bucky's death, even for one more mission; that protests that the shield belongs to Bucky and no one else. 

But he believes, at the same time and in equal measure, that it's only right to finish what he and Bucky started. If he can't do this in his own name, then he can do no better than honouring Bucky's instead. 

The Commandos seem to agree. As he straps the shield to his back, one by one they come to clap him on the shoulder or shake his hand. "He would've wanted you to take it," Dum Dum says matter-of-factly.

He goes in alone, masked and hooded. There's no one on his side to see or tell the tale that the man wielding the shield is half a foot shorter than he should be; and the Commandos, he knows, will all swear to a man if they have to that it's Captain America who stormed the fortress first. Given the chaos of battle, no one will be able to contradict them.

Later, when Schmidt goes up in the Valkyrie, only Peggy and Phillips are there to witness that it's Steve who goes up with him; and it's only Peggy who hears his last message come through on the radio just before the plane hits the ocean. 

"Steve, don't do this," Peggy says, her voice crackly and urgent over the air waves. "We have time, we can work it out."

"Right now I'm in the middle of nowhere - if I wait any longer a lot of people are going to die. Peggy, this is my choice." 

The radio crackles static, and the ocean's already starting to rise up and meet him. 

"Peggy?" he says again, because there's not much time left. "You'll make sure they know it was him that took this plane down, won't you? You'll make sure they know he was a hero?"

"I will," she says. "I promise, Steve."

"I wish we could've had one more dance," Steve says, and then there's -

 

*  
*  
*

 

**2012**

The truth is, as Steve is later told, he wasn't even on SHIELD's radar. 

It was the Valkyrie and HYDRA's technology that they were after - the frozen soldier was just a bonus. But there he was. So they defrosted him, brought him back to life, gave him a run-down on what he'd missed. 

Files that had lain sealed since 1945 were dusted off from archive and then sealed up again, digitally, for highest clearance only. All these years later, and he's still the closest thing to a super-soldier the United States has successfully produced. All this time gone by, and he's still the secret that SHIELD never told. 

*

He meets Agent Coulson soon after waking up from the ice, as one of the few agents who have sufficient clearance to know the truth about the Valkyrie.

Coulson's nice, unflaggingly polite, eager to show him the ropes of twenty-first century life and to recommend endless lists of movies, tv shows, records... But there's clearly something that he's burning to talk to him about. Eventually Steve just sighs and says, "Whatever it is, just ask."

"Well, it's just." Coulson shrugs, looking sheepish. "I grew up - everyone grew up knowing that Captain America went down with the Valkyrie. But then we finally find the Valkyrie and..." He spreads his hands.

"And all you find is me," Steve says. He forces himself to smile. "Sorry to be a disappointment."

"Oh no," Coulson says hastily. "Not at all, it's not a _disappointment_. More of a - shock."

"You were expecting Bucky Barnes," Steve says. He manages to keep his voice steady, an achievement considering that as far as he's concerned, Bucky only died a few weeks ago. "That's alright. He was the best man I ever knew. I'd be disappointed to find me too."

After a moment, Coulson fumbles in his pocket. "Here," he says. "Take a look at these - wait, wait, just, if you could please hold them by the edges only, they're vintage." He takes a breath. "But yes. Take a look at these."

Peggy had kept her promise, Steve realises, as he flips through the stack of trading cards. The world remembered Bucky as the hero Steve had always known he was.

"So. All the stories about Bucky Barnes, aside from the Valkyrie," Coulson says eagerly, watching him turn card over card. "How many of them are true?"

"They're all true," Steve says after a moment, turning the last one over in his hand. Bucky's face smiles up at him over that damn shield. "Every single one."

*

When Loki and the Chitauri attack just a few weeks later, Director Fury comes calling. 

"You here with a mission, sir?"

"I am."

"Trying to get me back in the world?"

"Trying to save it."

Everything has changed, and nothing has changed. Seventy years and it's like the war never ended. 

Steve boards the helicarrier dressed in black, hood up and shades on. His only distinguishing mark is the blacked-out shield he carries on his back - without it, he could be any other agent.

"Wait, so who is this guy, exactly?" Stark says, interrupting the debate around the conference table. He points in Steve's direction.

"Agent Steve Rogers," Maria Hill says, for the second time. "One of our tactical experts."

"Oh, right," Stark says. He loses interest immediately, turning away from Steve and launching into another tangent about gamma rays and iridium. 

Steve grits his teeth.

It takes the helicarrier almost falling out of the sky for Stark to see him as more than background noise. When they've managed to finally restart the engine, Stark flies over and gives him a hand up. "Not bad," he says. "Not bad."

Battered and bruised, Steve just nods.

"But next time," Stark says, patting him on the shoulder, "when I say pull the lever, try to make it snappy. Okay?"

"Next time?" Steve says, still breathing hard. He shakes his head. "Next time, I'll wear the suit and _you_ can pull the lever."

"Not a chance, Agent - um. Sorry, what was your name again?" Stark cracks up when Steve just glares. "Kidding, kidding. Agent Rogers, I get it."

The attack on New York is like nothing he's ever seen. It's nothing the _world_ has ever seen. 

Thor, Banner, and especially Stark save the day. But just by being there, by helping, Steve makes a difference. For the first time since waking up from the ice, he's sure of what he's doing and that he's using his abilities in the way Doctor Erskine had intended.

Sure, he doesn't have a magical hammer, or a robot suit, or a - well, whatever it is that Banner has. But it's him and Natasha and Clint, and New York's finest and bravest and just plain ordinary, that help hold the city so the superheroes can put the Chitauri away for good. 

Afterwards, they go their separate ways. Banner speeds off with Stark. Thor takes Loki back to Asgard. Clint and Natasha return to SHIELD. And Steve goes back to his clean, empty apartment...

He holds out all of one week before he calls Fury's number.

"You have any more missions, sir?"

"Agent Rogers, I was just waiting for you to ask."

*

**2013**

A year later and Steve is doing okay.

The thing is - it's alright when he's on missions, when his mind is focused on solving problems, when his body is engaged in the fight. That's when everything is clear.

It's the downtime, the in-between times that get to him, when he slows enough to look at the world he's woken up in. It's the quiet times that are hard.

*

He visits Peggy at least once a week when he's not on assignment, usually with Sharon but sometimes alone.

Sometimes, she's well enough to go into the garden. He and Sharon will help her into the chair, and he'll take her down the path into the sunshine. She loves the sun, tipping her head back to better feel the warmth. 

Sometimes, Peggy's ready to talk for hours. They chat about the old days and the Stork Club and aren't the kids today just _terrible_? All of this with wry smiles; when Sharon sighs, put-upon, he and Peggy just cackle to one another. She's still beautiful when she laughs.

And then there are the bad days...

But it's a good day, this day. Sharon couldn't make it, so it's just him and Peggy, poring over an old scrapbook she made him fetch from the top of the wardrobe. 

Steve flips the yellowed pages carefully, stopping from time to time to read aloud from an article or pausing at a photo. It's not the first time they've looked over this book, but he still blinks too much at all these memories, long distant for Peggy but still raw for him - Dum Dum and Falsworth playing cards to all hours of the night; Dernier and Jones bantering back and forth in raucous French; Morita snoring away from under his hat. 

And Bucky, of course, Bucky forever young as Captain America, with his rakish smile and the shield slung casually on his arm. 

There's only one photo in which Steve appears, just another person in a crowd of soldiers. He's hardly in it at all, looking away from the camera, his hand patting Bucky's arm as he turns to go. Bucky's grinning and looking over his shoulder, like he's about to say something. Knowing him, it would've been some dumb joke, probably trying to rile Steve up or make him laugh or both...

When they reach the end of the book, Peggy puts her hand on his arm. "Steve," she says. "There's another scrapbook at the back of the wardrobe. Fetch it for me, won't you, dear?" 

This one is much slimmer than the other, more than half the leaves left blank. But those that are filled - Steve's breath hitches again, when he sees what this book is about. 

"When the rumours began that the Winter Soldier was actually Captain America," Peggy says, her voice wavery but her eyes steady, "no one truly believed them. Captain America died crashing the Valkyrie into the middle of the ocean, everyone knew that."

"Almost everyone," Steve murmurs. He turns the pages with the very tips of his fingers, as though the book might explode if handled incorrectly. 

"Almost, yes," Peggy agrees. She closes her eyes briefly. "Only a few of us knew that it might actually be true. That there was a slim, slim chance that the Winter Soldier was truly Bucky Barnes and not just a lookalike."

The Winter Soldier. SHIELD had included a dossier on the Soldier in his post-revival briefing notes. No one authoritative had ever given the theory any credibility - but the story, the rumour, had lived on. He's seen the ambiguously blurry post-war photos and read the list of attributed kills, spanning a period of time that should be impossible. He spent a night or two online, looking up conspiracy theories from the Bucky Barnes 'truthers'. Natasha had shown him her scar.

Not much to go on. Almost certainly untrue. 

Yet just hearing Peggy talk about it like it's a possibility makes his heart beat faster. Too many years had passed... but if he could wake up from the ice, almost seventy years later, then surely anything was possible? Hadn't Zola experimented on Bucky, trying to replicate Doctor Erskine's serum?

"Howard and I never stopped looking for you," she said, her hand reaching out to hold Steve's. "And we never stopped trying to find out the truth about the Winter Soldier."

He nods and presses a kiss to the back of her hand, his throat too tight to speak.

It's a good day, and like all good days, it leaves him happy and hurting in equal measure. 

*

When he enters Fury's office for his scheduled meeting, he finds the Director watching Youtube. 

With the sound off, it takes Steve a moment to identify the footage - it's from the attack on New York, showing him being hurled out of the bank and smashing into a car, then wincingly pulling himself to his feet and breaking into a run.

It's not the first cellphone footage from New York to make its way online. Most of the videos are focused on the superheroes, but there's more than a few from Steve's rescue at the bank, and some showing him giving orders to the police before punching out Chitauri with a force no normal human should possess. Online speculation had run rampant. Was he wearing an exoskeleton, or just 'roided-up? Was he secret service, military, or a vigilante? 

"Nearly a year later," Fury says, "and people are still asking about you. _Who's the hooded man? Who's the guy with the black shield?_ " He shakes his head.

Steve shrugs slightly. "I thought you pulled the videos as soon as they got posted, sir." 

"We do. But they just keep on posting 'em." Fury sighs, tapping his fingers on his desk. "Tell me, Agent Rogers, what use is a secret agent who's all over the internet?" 

"I'll try to be more subtle the next time I'm fighting alien invaders, sir." 

Fury's one-eyed stare is enough to make most men quail. Thanks to Colonel Phillips, Steve is mostly immune and he takes it with equanimity.

Abruptly Fury stands. "Come with me, Rogers."

They take the elevator all the way down to a secured level, Fury giving the override to the security system to allow Steve temporary clearance - apparently he's not the only secret that SHIELD has to keep. 

"I'm sure you know that a few Youtube videos weren't the only thing we had to deal with after the attack on New York," Fury says, leaning back against the railing. "SHIELD faced some intense questioning over our handling of the attack, from DC and the public as well as the World Security Council."

"So I heard, sir."

As popular as the Avengers had become in the eyes of the public, it hadn't taken long for people to point out that the heroes were, essentially, a billionaire, an alien, and a green monster. Where was the government when all this went down? Where was the National Guard? The next time something like this happened, was the safety of America and the world going to be dependent on the whims of a few rogues and costumed freaks? What if next time, they sided _with_ the invaders, instead of against them?

Banner had disappeared from public sight since then and Thor was still in Asgard, but Stark had kept himself in the centre of attention. In fact he'd escalated matters rather than cooling them down by suggesting in a recent tv interview that the government should consider outsourcing their national security and intelligence operations. Stark Industries, he said with a smirk, would be happy to tender a proposal.

"To be blunt, Agent Rogers, the role of SHIELD has been called into question. Our funding was in serious danger of being cut."

Steve gives Fury a quizzical look. "Sir, is this your way of telling me that I'm being made redundant? Because I'm pretty sure with the funding cuts and all, SHIELD won't be able to afford my seventy years' worth of severance pay."

"Your job is safe for now, Rogers," Fury says drily, as the elevator starts to come to a halt. "The good news is that Council decided to keep our funding intact. But they've tied it to our work on a specific project."

The doors open and they step out into a vast underground hangar, filled with the sound of construction and the buzz of machinery. In the massive bay closest to the elevator, SHIELD workers are swarming over the bare bones of a vessel that Steve recognises will eventually be a helicarrier - and it's not the only one, he realises, looking around the enormous chamber. 

"Helicarriers," he says, turning around and around. "You're building more helicarriers."

"Welcome to Project Insight, Rogers," Fury says. He starts striding away. "Follow me."

As Fury talks him through the particulars of Insight, Steve starts to frown. By the time Fury's done he's barely able to contain himself. "This isn't freedom," he says angrily. "This is fear. Sir."

"I'm sorry, Agent, I didn't realise I was asking for your opinion," Fury says crushingly. "I didn't bring you here to debate the pros and cons, because it's going ahead whether you like it or not."

Steve tilts his chin up, meets Fury's stare evenly. "Yes, sir."

"The fact is things are moving very fast now, Rogers. With Stark pulling that latest stunt, we've been given express directives from the Council to work on this at double speed. We'd initially expected to go live in 2014 - now, we're projecting a launch well before the end of the year."

"Sir," Steve says, still completely neutral. 

Scowling, Fury leans in close, speaking more quietly now. "Listen, Rogers, you're not the only one with concerns about this. That's exactly why I'm bringing you in. This project is on a need-to-know basis, and right now you're need-to-know. I want some intel. You're gonna get it for me."

*

He visits Peggy the next day, and she's quick to notice he's more pensive than usual. "What's on your mind, Steve?" she says, taking his hand.

He forces a smile. "It's nothing."

She raises her eyebrows. "Don't forget I know your tells, Rogers." 

He hesitates. Then leans forward, speaking low and fast. "Peggy, when you were with SHIELD, did you ever suspect - I mean, was there any suggestion of corruption? Systemic leaks?"

Peggy's expression clouds over. "There was never anything certain," she says slowly. "But there were times - times when the enemy seemed just one step ahead of us. But we could never prove anything.

"I remember Howard called me, oh, it was more than twenty years ago now. He'd become a bit suspicious in his old age. Said he had something he needed to tell me in person." She trailed off, her eyes going a little unfocused. 

"So when you met up with Howard, what did he have to say?" Steve says, prompting gently. 

She shook her head. "I never spoke to Howard again. Two days later, he and Maria had the car accident." She clutched at his hand, seeing his troubled look. "But it _was_ an accident, Steve. I'm sure it was."

"Sorry I took so long, I couldn't find anything to put these in," Sharon says briskly, coming back into the room with a vase of flowers. She sets the vase down on the nightstand and then looks them a little suspiciously. "Did I interrupt something?"

"Not at all. Those flowers look lovely, dear, thank you," Peggy says. She closes her eyes and leans back into her pillows. "I'm feeling a bit tired now. Would one of you draw the blinds?"

Sharon gives him a ride back to his place. As he's about to get out of the car, she says, "Steve, wait." She hesitates, choosing words carefully. "I was just thinking - well, I know you love Aunt Peggy and of course you should keep visiting as much as you want. But you need to think about making more friends, Steve, people your own age."

"My own age?" he repeats. "Sharon, I'm ninety-five."

She rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean."

"Look, I have friends," he says, a little defensively. "There's you. And hey, I have lunch with Natasha and Clint sometimes."

"Yes, but who do you know from outside of SHIELD?" She pats his shoulder when he falls silent. "Look, I know getting out there and meeting new people isn't easy. Just think about it, okay?"

"Okay." He looks out the window. "I'll think about it."

*

Fury had given him a list of names and told him to start digging: an engineer, a legal expert, a communications officer, a field agent...

Each had expressed concerns about Project Insight, especially the sped-up schedule and potential ethical issues. Each was removed from the project for what appeared to be entirely different, unlinked reasons.

The engineer was demoted after it was found he'd been misusing SHIELD technology to cheat at blackjack. The legal expert was transferred to a different project, based in Guatemala. The communications officer withdrew her statement for reasons unknown, and the field agent was killed in the line of duty. 

"Seems to me," Fury had said, "that someone out there thinks it's vitally important for Project Insight to get off the ground. Find out who it is, Rogers, and why."

Four days later, he calls Fury on a secure line. "I've made some progress on your project, sir. There's a few leads I'd like to follow up, with your permission."

"That so, Rogers?" Fury says. It sounds like he's driving. "Alright. Come in this afternoon and we can discuss-"

Abruptly there's the sound of screeching wheels, the crunch of metal and glass, and Fury's strangled cry. 

"Sir?" Steve says sharply. "Fury? Fury, do you hear me?"

There's crackling on the line and then Fury, coughing. "I hear you, Rogers." There's the rattle of gunfire and through it he hears Fury shout, "Computer, transmit coordinates to Agent Rogers, and activate counter-measures!"

"Transmitting coordinates now. Counter-measure systems compromised-" 

Steve's phone bleeps with the incoming coordinates just as the line goes dead. By then he's already running for his Harley.

He follows the trail of destruction through the streets of DC, his motorcycle weaving through the chaos, until he comes to a halt at the sight of Fury's overturned car and the masked figure with the gleaming metal arm stalking towards it.

 _The Winter Soldier_. 

But there's no time to think about whose face is really under the mask. Before the Soldier can reach Fury, Steve's off the bike and hurling the shield at his back. The Soldier spins and catches the shield in his metal hand with a _clunk_. And then he hurls it right back - it hits Steve in the chest and he staggers, struggling to keep his footing. He brings the shield up into position just in time as the Soldier starts to fire.

When the Soldier's clip runs empty, Steve seizes the split-second opportunity. He throws the shield again, knocking the weapon from the Soldier's hand, and follows it up by running full tilt to slam his body into the Soldier's, smashing him into the side of the car with his full weight behind the shield. 

But the Soldier's metal arm pushes him back, back, back, the soles of Steve's shoes sliding over the tarmac with a screeching of rubber. As the Soldier starts swinging with the other arm Steve recovers just in time to weave backwards and dodge a punch that would have taken out his jaw, and then they're in the thick of it.

Hand to hand they're almost matched, exchanging blow for brutal blow, reacting quick as thought. Steve is faster and stronger than any ordinary man, but the Soldier is just as fast, just as strong. It's like fighting his mirror. 

His mirror - but a taller, heavier mirror. The Soldier is bigger and he takes every advantage of the differential. It only takes one moment, one lapse; the Soldier knocks the shield from his hand and pins Steve to the side of the car, metal hand locked around his throat. As Steve starts to choke, his feet starting to lift off the ground, he reaches into his pocket.

Steve stabs the Soldier in the neck with a syringe, loaded with a compound developed by Banner - it won't stop the Other Guy, but it's effective enough on a super-soldier. The pressure on his neck eases immediately; Steve pushes the Soldier away and leans back against the car, wheezing.

The Soldier pulls the syringe from his neck and crushes it in his hand even as he topples, the compound taking effect. He thrashes and convulses as he goes down, until finally his body goes limp. 

Suddenly, Steve panics, thinking _cyanide pill_ , and he kneels over the Soldier's body, ripping off the goggles and mask, but there's no foam, no blood, thank god, he's just unconscious and - 

\- and the Soldier is Bucky, _it's Bucky_ , it's actually him and this is what Steve has always imagined it must feel like to have your heart stop beating. Steve feels the wet running down his face and scrubs at it absently; and when he brings his hand back down from his eyes he's dimly, distantly surprised to see that it's tears, not blood.

"Rogers," Fury rasps, limping towards him. It's almost a shock to remember he's there. "Rogers, pull yourself together. We need to get out of here and off the grid. There'll be more of them coming."

Steve nods, gulping, getting to his feet and retrieving his shield. He hefts Bucky's body up over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and then follows Fury past the wreck of the car and down into a manhole.

*

The Soldier wakes up slowly.

It's dark. He's lying on a thin pallet in a cold, dark room. He's lying in the dark and he has failed his mission.

As he sits up, the lights turn on overhead. He throws his hand up against the sudden brightness, pulling his lips back from his teeth in a grimace. 

An intercom speaker flicks on, over his head, and a voice comes through. "Bucky," someone says, a voice that sounds somehow familiar, "Bucky, are you okay?"

"Who the hell is Bucky?" the Soldier says, blinking rapidly and scanning the cell for points of entry and exit, structural weaknesses, potential weapons. 

The intercom flicks on again. A different voice this time: a woman, cool, calm. "You're in the custody of SHIELD. Do you know what that means?"

"Yes," he says, getting to his feet, still scanning. There are cameras in the ceiling, hidden in the light fixtures and in an air vent. "It means I failed my mission."

"It means we're giving you a chance," the voice says. "We're giving you a chance to tell us who sent you and what they want from Project Insight."

He stays silent, poised in the centre of the room, eyes still moving. They can see him, he thinks, but he can't see them. There's one way to make this more even. He jumps - raking his metal hand along the lights, smashing all that he can reach. The fluorescent tubes shatter, raining down glass and wiring and metal. 

There's a slight sigh on the intercom. "Well. It's up to you, soldier."

The Soldier hunkers down in the dark, brushing glass from his hair and clothes. He starts planning his escape.

*

Maria Hill flicks the intercom off and shrugs at Steve. "Ideas?"

"I could talk to him," he says. Trying and failing not to sound as eager as he feels. "I could go in, see him face to face. He might remember me." 

Hill shakes her head. "He doesn't even know his name," she says, not unkindly. "He's been brainwashed for god knows how long. You don't know what he might do to you." 

He knows Hill is right, and that she means well, but there's a part of Steve that simply refuses to believe Bucky wouldn't recognise him given a chance. Maybe not straight away, but given space, given time... 

But time, as Fury is quick to remind them, is the one thing they don't have. According to official channels, SHIELD assumes Fury's been abducted. With the whole of SHIELD is out sweeping the city for his location, the more likely it becomes that Fury's bolthole will be discovered, and it's only a matter of time before Steve's absence is discovered too. 

"Earlier today, you said you had some potential leads," Fury says, no less commanding for being confined to a bed and half-wrapped up in bandages. 

Steve nods slowly. Mentally he gives himself a shake, tries to focus again and stop thinking about Bucky sitting in that darkened cell. 

"The field agent who was killed, Agent Chu, she was worried before her last mission. Worried enough that she took out three different safety deposit boxes, under three different names. Whoever killed Chu found out about them - I checked all three boxes and they've been completely emptied.

"But," Steve says, reaching into his pocket, "at her house, I also found this." 

He holds out his hand. It's the key to a train station locker. 

*

He'd stay if he could, try and get Bucky to speak to him, but tactically he knows there's not much point. The Soldier doesn't want to talk so the best thing Steve can do is follow this lead.

He goes alone to the train station and waits half an hour, scoping the station for tails and surveillance. Finally, when he's satisfied that it's clear, he goes to the locker. He's just put the key in the lock when he feels a gun muzzle being pressed to his back. 

"Hello, Steve." 

"Natasha," he says, resignedly. Of course. 

"Amazing how much information you can get from cellphone records and Google search histories," Natasha murmurs, her free hand patting down his chest and sides for weapons. "I know Fury had you on some secret assignment to do with this place, and no one's seen either of you since he disappeared. Yet here you are, happy and healthy. So what's the story, Rogers? Did you kill him?" She jabs the gun into his ribs a little harder.

"Natasha, we're on the same side," he says urgently. "I didn't kill Fury, I was trying to save him! He was on to something, something big. They took him out and they tried to kill me too. If I'd killed him, do you think I'd be here now, still hanging around DC? I'm here because I'm trying to finish what he started."

She hesitates, just for a moment, and she's been incautious enough to stand too close. It's enough for Steve to turn, wrench her wrist back, and take the gun right out of her hand. They freeze like that for a moment, her eyes wide, Steve pointing the gun directly at her abdomen. 

Then Steve flips the gun, offers it back to her. "Take it," he says. "Quick, take it, before someone sees us. Cover me while I open the locker."

"Anyone ever tell you that you trust too easy, Rogers?" she says, but she takes the gun back anyway.

The locker swings open and for a disappointed moment he thinks it's empty. But then he reaches to the underside of the shelf, patting it down, and rips off the piece of paper that's been taped there. On the paper, there's a handwritten set of coordinates. As they walk out from the train station, arm in arm like some happy couple, Natasha's already entering them into her phone.

"It's somewhere in New Jersey," she says, showing Steve the map.

"Yeah," he says, surprised and not surprised at all to see Camp Lehigh come up as the location. "I know the place."

*

After the ghost of Zola has said his gleeful, gloating piece, and after Natasha realises there's a missile incoming -

"In case we don't make it out alive, Rogers," Natasha says as they huddle together beneath the shield, "I just want you to know..."

"Yes?" Steve says.

"What happened at the train station was pure luck. That's the one and only time you're ever getting the jump on me."

"Oh for-"

Then the missile hits.

*

When they show up back at the bolthole, looking like something the cat dragged in, Hill merely raises her eyebrows. 

"Shower," Natasha says. "Now."

"Before you do that, there's someone you probably want to see," Steve says, steering her towards the medical bay. It's one of the few times he sees Natasha actually tear up.

"Gotta hand it to you, Rogers," she says later, "didn't think you had it in you to keep something like that from me from all this time."

"I didn't lie, I just - didn't tell you everything," he says with a shrug. "Peggy Carter taught me that."

But they don't have the luxury of time to spend on lengthy reunions or exchanging war stories. Within half an hour they've convened again at Fury's bedside, snapping back into battle mode

The decision to destroy Insight and take down Pierce is easy, but Fury fights to preserve SHIELD until it's clear he's outnumbered. 

"We're not salvaging anything," Steve says. "We're not just taking down Insight, sir, we're taking down SHIELD."

Fury leans back into his pillows. "So you're giving the orders now, Agent?" He sounds resigned, rather than sarcastic.

"I don't know about that. I do know we've had seventy years of nothing but secrets," Steve says. "Maybe it's time for someone to start telling the truth as well."

After the meeting, he takes Hill aside. "How is he?" No need to specify.

Hill shakes her head. "After the second escape attempt, we reinforced the door. After the third one - well. We had to tranq him again." She puts her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Steve. I just don't know if there's anything of your friend left inside him anymore."

*

In his dream, he lies waiting in a dim-lit cell. 

He opens his eyes. When he tries to move his hands, he finds they're bound, his arms and legs likewise strapped down to the table. So it's this dream again.

"Bucky," someone says, shaking him by the shoulders. "Bucky."

"Steve," he says slowly, fumbling the name out of some long-locked box, to the man standing over him, a stranger with a familiar face. "Steve, I thought you were dead."

The man shakes his head, his mouth tight, eyes shining. "No," he says. "No, I thought _you_ were." 

He wishes his hands were free. If they were, he'd reach out and touch this man. See if he was real, or just a part of the dream. He'd touch him and maybe he wouldn't let go.

There's a noise from outside the room. He feels his heart speed up, his breathing getting faster. "They're coming, Steve," he says, starting to struggle against his bonds. "They're coming, you've got to get out, you've got to get away!"

"Who's coming, Bucky?" the man says intently, his hands moving from Bucky's shoulders to frame his face. "Tell me, Bucky, who's coming?"

"Zola," he whispers. "It's Doctor Zola."

"Bucky," the man says, biting his lip and looking like he's about to cry. "Bucky, what year is this?" 

"1943," he gasps, and finally his left arm comes free and he can reach out and touch this man and - 

\- he sees the arm, his metal arm, and all at once he realises he's awake and he remembers - 

\- the mission. Insight. Pierce. Orders. Fury. _The mission_.

With a single blow, the Soldier sends the man flying across the cell, and then sets to work pulling himself free of his restraints.

The man gets up faster than any ordinary person could, but still he hangs back, seemingly reluctant. "Bucky, I don't want to fight you," he says, just before the Soldier punches him in the face.

"Then get out of my way," the Soldier says, and moves in for a second blow. 

They fight almost as they did on the street, fast and brutal and desperate. But the difference is that this time the man is pulling his punches, hitting the Soldier enough to hurt but not harm him, aiming to stop him rather than to maim or kill.

The difference is that the Soldier is doing the same thing. 

With a snarl, the Soldier forces himself to make a conscious effort to land a knock-out blow. At last the man staggers back, hitting the wall and sliding downwards with his eyes starting to fall shut. 

Enough. This is his best chance to escape. The Soldier doesn't wait to see if the man will get up again - he runs out of the cell and through what seems to be an underground bunker, brushing aside sentries and snatching a gun as he goes. Alarms are going off and they're starting to lock down, but they're too late to stop him as he slides beneath a descending security door and heads towards daylight.

No time to look back. The Soldier has a mission report to deliver.

*

He goes to the Triskelion, straight to Pierce's office.

Pierce betrays no emotion when the Soldier appears. "You're late," he says, leaning back in his seat, fiddling with a pen. "Mission report."

"Mission failed," he says, after a pause. The words feel unfamiliar in his mouth. He may have failed before. But he cannot recall it.

Pierce leans forward. Now he is smiling. "Mission failed?" he repeats.

The Soldier nods once. 

He can't recall if he has ever failed before. Yet he's certain that what will follow will cause him pain. That _Pierce_ will cause him pain.

Before Pierce can follow up the promise of his thin, unamused smile, there's the blare of sirens, coming from every level. A cool, impersonal voice on the loudspeakers instructs them to evacuate immediately; and after a moment there's a rising buzz from all over the Triskelion, the sound of voices and footsteps, the building starting to empty.

Pierce's phone starts buzzing. He scowls at the display and then starts heading for the door. "We have a major data breach. Fury and Hawley are disabling all SHIELD security protocols."

The Soldier moves to follow - until Pierce stops dead at the door, starts backing away, hands in the air.

"Tell him to stand down," says a voice from just outside the room. "Tell him to drop his weapon and kick it away." And all the hackles are raised on the back of the Soldier's neck because he knows this voice, he _knows_ this man - 

"Stand down, Soldier," Pierce says, still backing up. "Put down the gun."

"Hands behind your head," the man says as he eases into the room, and it's the man from the bunker, from the street, his dreams, his memories -

\- and he remembers that the man's name is Steve, _Steve Rogers_ , and - 

\- that he has a name of his own, that he's Bucky.

*

Steve keeps his gun trained on Pierce while Fury, following him into the room, covers Bucky.

Pierce seems relaxed, nonchalant, his arms casually folded behind his head. In contrast Bucky, or the Soldier, is visibly strung tight - his eyes flicking back and forth between Pierce and Steve, his metal hand clenching and unclenching.

"I'm glad you're here, Nick," Pierce says.

"Really? Because I thought you tried to have me killed."

"Well, you know how the game works." Pierce sighs and leans back against the window. "What are you hoping to achieve here, Nick? Are you going to arrest me? Bring me before the Council with some wild story about HYDRA and ask them to put a halt to Project Insight? Who do you think they're going to believe?"

"No," Fury says. "It's too late for that."

"Too late?" Pierce says quizzically. 

"Whether or not they believe me is going to be irrelevant, since Councilwoman Hawley and I just dumped your files all over the internet. Besides - just listen," Fury says, and tilts his head, just a little.

They all hear it: the rumble of what could be some distant thunder, or the vibrations of an earthquake, the building slowly starting to shake beneath their feet. It's coming from deep down in the earth, far beneath the foundations of the Triskelion.

"You hear that sound?" Fury says, soft and dangerous. "That sound means Agent Hill and her team completed their mission. That's the sound of your helicarriers making their acquaintance with a ton of explosives. All that work, undone in a moment. Sad, isn't it?"

For a moment Pierce tenses, looking actually angry for the first time. Then his shoulders slump again, his expression clears. "What a waste," he says. "We could have remade the world, Nick, we could've made it better. Instead you've thrown it all away."

"I wouldn't have wanted to live in your world," Fury says. His jaw clenches, his eye narrowing. "You know, there was a time I would have taken a bullet for you."

"You already did," Pierce says. "And you will again. Soldier!" He barks the order. "Kill them both."

It all happens very quickly. Fury fires at the Soldier twice, but he deflects the bullets with his arm, moving with inhuman speed across the room. He starts to swing at Fury with what should be a crushing blow - but Steve throws his shield, the angle imperfect but almost good enough, and the punch that should kill Fury stuns him instead.

Steve pulls the trigger, one-two-three, but the Soldier's too fast. He rolls and comes up again with Fury's gun in his hand, and then it's the two of them squaring off against one another as Pierce watches, still smiling. 

But the Soldier doesn't shoot.

"Fire," Pierce says after a moment, starting to frown. "Fire now! That's an order, Soldier."

"Bucky, don't do this," Steve says, ignoring Pierce. He tries to hold the gun straight but for the first time since 1943 he finds his hands shaking in the heat of battle. The Soldier stares at him down the barrel of his own gun, his eyes cold, his expression blank. "Please, Bucky, don't do this. Don't you remember? It's me, Steve."

"Soldier," Pierce says, warningly. "Soldier, I ordered you to -"

The Soldier turns and fires three times. Pierce drops to the ground, blood oozing from two neat holes in his forehead and one in his chest. 

Bucky lowers the gun. His face is still blank. He looks at Steve like he's waiting for orders. "Steve," he says, his voice completely flat. "What's my mission?"

"There's no mission, Bucky," Steve says, when he can swallow around the tightness of his throat. "There's no mission. Just - just help me get out of here, okay? We need to get to the roof."

Slowly Bucky nods.

Steve carries Fury, who's just starting to recover, out the door and towards the fire stairs. Bucky picks up the shield and covers them, shooting down the handful of HYDRA agents who try to halt their progress. 

"Steve, I'm with Hawley in the chopper. What's your ETA?" Natasha says into his earpiece as they round another flight of stairs. "The building's not stable. We don't have much time. I've got to get this bird in the air soon."

"We're almost there," he says. "Give me two minutes."

"Roger that."

The building's been shaking the whole time, getting worse and worse so by the time they reach the roof it's actually hard to keep steady footing. As they emerge into the daylight, he sees Natasha's already taken off, the helicopter hovering above the launchpad with a rope ladder dangling down. 

Gritting his teeth, Steve hefts Fury over his shoulder more securely and starts to climb. As he reaches the top, Councilwoman Hawley helps him haul Fury up and on to the floor of the helicopter. 

Steve looks back over his shoulder and sees Bucky is still on the tarmac, looking up at him, making no motion towards the ladder. "Bucky," he shouts over the sound of the chopper engine. "Bucky, come on!"

"Steve," Natasha says warningly into his earpiece. "If he's coming, he's got to come _now_."

Still Bucky doesn't move, and now fault lines are starting to appear in the surface of the roof, zig-zagging across the launchpad. From the floors below, there's the sound of glass shattering, metal rending, concrete crumbling. 

Steve starts to climb down the ladder. "Bucky," he says, reaching out, "Bucky, please."

Slowly, Bucky takes Steve's hand - and it's just in time, because the launchpad crumbles away beneath him even as his feet are leaving the ground. 

They climb into the helicopter as Natasha takes them up in the air and away. 

From up on high, they watch as the Triskelion shakes and crumbles, as the vast underground hangars open up and are flooded by the waters of the Potomac. For a time, the river seems to run almost red, the fire from the explosions mingling with the deep blue and green of the water, until the flames are at last extinguished and the river goes dark with the day. 

*

A few days later, as people start making sense of all the files that've been released online, the first headlines about Steve begin to appear. 

"Did you see?" Natasha says, holding up her phone. "You're trending." 

"What?"

She shows him: _#newcaptainamerica_

"They can't call me that," he says, a little shocked.

"Well, they are! You're the guy who rescued the 107th and crashed the Valkyrie, aren't you? And you helped save New York last year." She scrolls further through her timeline. "Though I've got to be honest, not all of the comments are flattering. First everyone finds out the 'old' Captain America was turned into a killer assassin - and now the 'new' Captain America is a guy who's been an assassin all along? Harsh."

"Well, you're always telling me how fast things move now. They'll give up on this soon enough." He shakes his head. "I never wanted to be the hero anyway. That was always Bucky."

Natasha gives him a sweet, mocking smile. "Steve. Please. It's adorable that you think what _you_ want has anything to do with it."

She's right, of course. The nickname sticks, criticisms and all. Steve is 'Captain America' now whether he likes it or not. 

He'd died under this name, in Bucky's name, in the hope Captain America would be a legend forever. Once Coulson had asked him if all the stories were true - he'd answered _yes_ and meant it, in the spirit if not the letter. 

He'd still say _yes_ today, if Coulson were here to ask him. The difference is that today, the stories themselves have changed. 

Captain America means both more and less than it once did - it's secrets as well as heroism, lies mixed up with freedom. It's Steve Rogers, defying orders to break out hundreds of prisoners from Krossberg, and shooting a stranger in the back on the word from up on high. It was Bucky Barnes, laying down his life to save his best friend, and then rising from the dead to wreak chaos on an unstable world.

Maybe he should feel sad that the name he died to protect has so drastically changed. Instead, Steve feels a kind of relief. 

It's only the truth, after all. The whole truth this time - the two sides of the coin, the black shield as well as the red-white-and-blue.

*

He's been out of the ice for six months now. 

It's far longer than any period he's been out before, and as time goes on he realises why his handlers were so careful to put him under at regular intervals. Every day, a little piece of the past comes back to him. Every day, he remembers more about the man he used to be.

For his days are his own now. No missions, no orders, no masters.

Sometimes, when the sun shines and he's eaten his fill and a stranger smiles at him in the street, he thinks this is enough, that he could be content with this.

Sometimes, when the days stretch long and empty and it's too hard to even look Steve in the face let alone speak to him, he thinks freedom can be a burden too.

Steve. 

Steve, who's always there, letting Bucky push him away when he needs his space, letting Bucky cling when he needs the human contact. Steve, who's at the heart of every memory and fevered dream; who looks at Bucky like he's waiting for something. 

Sometimes Bucky feels like he's waiting too.

*

They visit Peggy. 

She cries when she sees him. "I'm sorry," she says, wiping at her eyes. "I just never thought..." 

Bucky ducks his head, looking down at his feet. After a moment he feels her hand come to rest lightly on his crown. 

"I'm glad I lived to see this," she says. "To see both of you."

Later, she sends Steve away on a pretext and beckons Bucky closer. 

"Back then I asked you to keep Steve safe. You kept your word and paid the price. So I told myself I'd be ready, that it was my turn next." She shakes her head. "Instead - I _lived_. I lived my life, and you both lost yours."

"But that's not what happened," Bucky says, after a moment. He frowns, struggling to remember. "I knew what I was doing - I wanted to keep him safe too. We both did." He adds, deadpan, "So we both failed."

Peggy's startled into a laugh. 

"You lived," he says, a little impatiently. "So be glad."

Peggy closes her eyes a moment. "I am," she says quietly. "I am, now. I'm glad you're here for each other."

*

A few days later, he goes to Steve. "Here," Bucky says, pushing the shield into Steve's hands, the shield that's been lying untouched and unspoken of ever since the Triskelion.

"No, this is yours, Bucky," Steve says, trying to push it back. "I only carried it because it's yours."

Bucky shakes his head. "Not anymore."

Steve doesn't say yes but he doesn't say no. He runs his hand across the shield's smooth surface, the matte black paint scored and scratched all over. 

"The colour," Bucky says abruptly. 

"What about it?" Steve says, puzzled. 

"It's wrong. It shouldn't be black. You should paint it again, the way it used to be."

Steve looks doubtful. "Should I? I don't know..."

"Yes, you should," Bucky says, insistent. "It's not. It doesn't mean you're forgetting about it. It's not like you're pretending it never happened. It's just, it happened, and then it was over. Things got better."

"Oh," Steve says, not looking at the shield at all.

"Things can get better," Bucky says roughly. "People can get better. Given time." He reaches out to hold Steve's hand. "You know?"

Steve squeezes Bucky's hand. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

The next day they paint the shield again, in red and white and blue. 

*

**2014**

An afternoon. The sun is warm, the couch is soft. Bucky dozes. 

He hears the front door open and close; registers Steve's footsteps, the way he toes off his shoes at the door, hears him walk across the room and sit down beside the couch.

"Bucky?" he says, fingers light on his hair. "Are you awake?"

He doesn't respond. Easier just to lie here half-asleep, knowing Steve is close, that he's safe. 

"I went to the Smithsonian today," he says quietly, hand still petting Bucky's hair. "The new exhibit's almost ready. They wanted me to look at it before it opened.

"It was strange, seeing all those old newsreels and photos of Colonel Phillips and Peggy and Doctor Erskine. And you, everywhere, in every single display," the smile coming through loud and clear in his voice. "God, you're so..."

Abruptly he changes the subject, or seems to. 

"There was a whole section about Krossberg. That took me back. Meeting all the Commandos for the first time. The look on Dum Dum's face when he realised I'd come to rescue you all on my own."

His voice drops even lower. "But do you - do you remember, afterwards? When I couldn't speak to you for days, when I could barely look at you. Finally you had to ask me why I was avoiding you. So I gave you a reason, a real reason.

"But there was another one.

"Lie by omission, that's what Peggy always told me." Steve laughs softly. "Well. I guess I've had enough of lies for a lifetime. So, here goes...

"It was actually Peggy that made me realise. 

"See, Peggy was the first girl I ever wanted to marry. I could see myself spending the rest of my life with her, I could see us getting old together, and I knew she cared about me too. After the war, I was going to propose. We'd move to New York, get a place, start a family...

"Then I found you at Krossberg and from the first moment I saw you again, I knew for certain - the way I was starting to feel about Peggy was the way I'd felt for you all along."

Steve is silent for a long time. Bucky concentrates on his breathing, in and out, in and out. 

"I loved Peggy. I'll always love her," he says at last. "But I was in love with you first. I still am."

Bucky doesn't move. If he moves, he might wake up.

"It's okay," Steve says eventually. "You don't have to say anything. I understand." Then he stands up and starts to walk away. 

Oh, he thinks, _oh_. He opens his eyes. "Steve," he says, "wait." He reaches out and grabs Steve by the wrist, pulls him back in and down on the couch beside him. 

"Yes?" Steve says, hesitantly.

He links their hands together, trying to put the words together. "I guess I'm tired of lies too," Bucky says at last. "I'm tired of pretending." He looks down at their hands, intertwined. "Been pretending since long before Krossberg."

"Oh," Steve says faintly, looking shocked. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He leans forward, rests his forehead against's Steve's. "Truly." 

They've waited seventy years for their first kiss. They don't waste time waiting for the second.

*

Sam meets Steve out running, when he laps Sam easily and Sam gives him hell. Yep. It's definitely going to be a beautiful friendship.

Afterwards he introduces himself, just as though his face hasn't been all over the internet for the past twelve months. "Steve Rogers."

They shake and Sam grins. "Yeah, I kind of put that together. Nice work at the Committee hearings, by the way."

"Thanks," Steve says, looking embarrassed. 

They chat until there's a bleep from Steve's phone. Whoever the message is from, it makes Steve smile. He looks up again, putting the phone away. "Well, I've got to go. Thanks for the run. If that's what you wanna call running."

"Oh, that's how it is?"

"Oh, that's how it is."

Sam laughs. "Okay. Any time you wanna stop by the VA, make me look awesome in front of the girl at the front desk, just let me know."

"Actually," Steve says, looking thoughtful, "there's someone I'd like to bring to a meeting."

"Sure," Sam says. "Of course. Friend? Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Damn," he says with great interest. "I didn't realise Captain America could blush like that." Then he takes pity. "It's cool, man. Whoever it is, they're welcome."

"Thanks," Steve says. His smile gets big. "Can't wait for you to meet him."

**Author's Note:**

> 1 July: **pilot-s** [drew this amazing artwork of Steve and Bucky](http://www.pilot-star.net/post/90419318210/heart-mint-sent-me-this-fic-about-steve-getting#notes) and it's the best thing ever! ♥
> 
> 15 September: [Sin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sin) made an awesome [banner](http://littlerhymes.dreamwidth.org/180833.html)!
> 
> And [citadelofswords](http://citadelofswords.tumblr.com/) wrote an adorable [fake boyfriends ficlet](http://aarchiive.tumblr.com/post/94061812825/7-stucky) set before the end of the story. [Link is fixed now! 21/01/16]

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Decoys - Podfic, written by littlerhymes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3412733) by [daniomalley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daniomalley/pseuds/daniomalley)




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